<h1>2A. Develop a formal action plan: Goals, strategies, assumptions, and
objectives</h1>
<h2>Goals</h2>
<p>Developing a clear idea of what you would like to accomplish is the essential first part of
putting together your action plan. <strong>Goals</strong> are linked to your project's conservation targets and
represent the desired status of the targets over the long-term -- they are formal statements of
the ultimate impacts you hope to achieve. A good goal meets the criteria of being <i>linked to
targets, impact oriented, measurable, time limited, and specific</i>.</p>
<h2>Strategies</h2>
<p>Once you determine what you want to accomplish, you then need to think about what you
need to do. Good strategic planning involves determining where you will intervene -- and
also where you will not. The first decision that you have to make is to prioritize on which
factor in your conceptual model you need to take action -- these are the key intervention
points. In some cases, the most obvious key intervention point is the direct threat itself. But
in many other cases, you get more leverage if you intervene on an indirect threat or
opportunity affecting the direct threat -- on the chain of factors affecting each direct threat.</p>
<p>After you have selected on which factor in your conceptual model you will intervene, you
may need to brainstorm a list of <strong>strategies</strong>. Your brainstormed list will likely have more
strategies than you can realistically undertake with your project. You could narrow down the
factors through a discussion with your team, or you could do a ranking exercise to help you
choose your strategies. Regardless of how you narrow down your strategies, some useful
conditions to consider include: likelihood the strategy will be successful; feasibility of
strategy; cost of strategy; and gap the strategy would address. In addition, you should make
sure each strategy you select meets the following criteria: <i>linked, focused, feasible, and
appropriate</i>. Your strategies can range in
scale from local to global, depending on the situation. Strategies, in turn, are composed of
multiple <strong>activities</strong>.</p>
<p>You can use your conceptual model to show the strategy you will use, the key intervention
point you are addressing with that strategy, and the chain of factors you presume you will
affect with that strategy.</p>
<h2>Assumptions and objectives</h2>
<p>As implied above, once you have selected your strategies, you then need to be clear about
how you think that strategy will help you achieve your conservation results. This means you
need to make explicit the <strong>assumptions</strong> that show how you believe your strategies will
contribute to reducing threats and achieving the conservation of your targets. A <strong>results chain</strong>
is a tool that provides a graphical depiction of these assumptions. You can use your
conceptual model as the basis for developing your results chains.</p>
<p>Results chains are also a very useful tool for setting objectives.  <strong>Objectives</strong> specify the
desired changes in specific threats and opportunities that you would
like to achieve in the short and medium-term. In short, they are formal statements of the
outcomes (or <strong>intermediate results</strong>) that you believe are necessary to attain your goals. A good
objective meets the criteria of being <i>results oriented, measurable, time limited, specific, and
practical</i></p>
<p>Your objectives are tied to the results you would like to see for the
different factors in your chain. As a start, you should always develop an objective for the
direct threat that is in your results chain.</p>
<p>The goals and objectives specified in your results chain represent what you need to
accomplish and the assumptions you hold about how your strategies will help you reach those
accomplishments. As such, these results chain components become the ultimate measure
against which you will gauge the progress of your project.</p>
<p>Together, your goals, objectives, strategies, and assumptions form your Action Plan. You
should have some text describing each of these components, but you can use your conceptual
model as an elegant way to present much of this information in a succinct manner that can be
quickly understood by others.</p>
<p>You should capture the final versions of your goals, objectives, strategies, and assumptions in
your formal Action Plan.</p>
Outputs for this standard practice include:
<ul>
<li>Goals for each target.</li>
<li>Identification of "key factors" and draft strategies.</li>
<li>Ranking of draft strategies.</li>
<li>Results chains that specify assumptions for key strategies.</li>
<li>Objectives for key factors.</li>
<li>Finalized project conceptual model that incorporates goals, objectives, and
strategies.</li>
<li>Finalized Action Plan.</li></ul>
